There it is, the big stuff in life, scaring us as we experience it, read about it, or observe someone we love but cannot really help in their time of suffering. We are made of flesh, blood, bones, fear and courage. Life changes from day to day and in many ways, it’s out to get us. We truly have to live defensively to get the most out of our lives. Those of us who live with chronic pain and chronic disease know the details of this experience called “living.” It doesn’t come to us in spurts, time outs or sick leave. We live the spurt. We are always in time out and sick leave for some of us has been our way of life for years.

Basically we trudge on each day and look for the “big” answers, like the perfect doctor, the miraculous cure, etc. until one day we make a discovery. Slowly our minds and hearts wrap around the fact that all of life hinges on the little things, and the small answers. Life moves forward one day at a time; there is no other way. Basically, I have reached the conclusion life with chronic pain is a battle and a two-fold one at that. Grief and survival are our greatest challenges on our daily trek.

GRIEF: One of my favorite writers is the late theologian and professor C.S.Lewis. He had a brilliant mind but not only taught at Oxford and Cambridge and wrote beautiful, logical treatises on religion but also became well-known for his children’s books about the magical kingdom of Narnia. His philosophy and analysis on Christianity was that of a converted atheist and shows a mind capable of brilliant deductive reasoning on the subject. He has much to say on the subject of suffering and grief. Much of his writing about grief is to be found in his book A GRIEF OBSERVED. He was struggling with the death of his dear wife, Joy, and openly writes of his feelings, his grief and his loss. Please let me share with you a few of his observations on this subject because each of us knows the grieving process all too well as we grieve not just for those we have lost but for our former, healthier selves. We share grief for the freedom of movement we once knew, occupations we have lost, friendships brought to an end by the changes within us. We have changed and from our viewpoint, others have also changed. Each day we are forced to deal with the changes to our bodies, our minds and our reactions to it all.

C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘Getting over it so soon?’ But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. For in grief, nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often will it be for always?—how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, ‘I never realized my loss till this moment’? The same leg is cut off time after time.”

In the darkness of night when so often, we cannot sleep due to pain or grieving or some other ugly frustration of life, we indeed relive what we have experienced. I love his thoughts when he incorporates the dentist, such as, “I once read the sentence ‘I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache and about lying awake.’ That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day thinking about living each day in grief. It doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.”

SURVIVAL: To quote this dear man once again, “Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?” Oh that does have a familiar ring to it. How many times each of us have kicked and screamed in our pain but it is all so exhausting, there is always that day when we give in and say, “Okay, what can I do to make my life better if this is to be?”

I believe the answers lie in our daily lives, in the smaller acts we perform. This, of course, involves choices we make. If we have not found the miracle cure, surely we have found some sound advice along the way. All too often we lose sight of the helpful, little things while looking for the “big catch.” Our lives are, in reality, a sum total of all the pieces. Performing that stretch or exercise in a consistent fashion will keep those muscles strong. Lifting that tiny weight each night, especially when you don’t feel like it can make all the difference in how your body functions, whether you can push a cart at the store and carry in your own groceries. We are often too eager to ask for help when we still retain the capability. We are in a battle for our lives and need to be brave warriors and stave off disability as long as possible.

We are free to choose what we eat and to educate ourselves on what is good and bad for us. We know that carrying around excess weight is hard on our joints but we often give in to this problem and it only creates more problems, like strains, falls, diabetes, etc. We owe it to ourselves and to our families to practice safety: move that throw rug, tape that cord to the floor, take the stairs slowly, and always reserve one hand to hold the rail. We can do these things as well as becoming knowledgeable about our medications and not taking them to excess, not driving when under the “influence” and knowing what drugs do not mix well with others. Ask your pharmacist if you have doubts. Sometimes too many doctors can make a “spoiled stew.” Each doctor should know what the others prescribe for you.

Most of all, we each have to search daily, sometimes hourly to find the upward frame of mind. We cannot be defeated. Having faith in life, in God and the powers of life can make all the difference. Once again, and lastly, I want to quote from C.S. Lewis. “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?”

Look for the little, daily answers dear friends. They are there, hidden beneath the larger annoyances and questions. They make all the difference, like bricks on a walkway. One brick must be laid at a time before the walkway is complete. Perhaps if you build it, more health will come, both physically and mentally.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Falkner-Wood

Sue Falkner-Wood is a retired registered nurse living in Astoria, Ore., with her husband, who is also an R.N. Sue left nursing in 1990 due to chronic pain and other symptoms related to what was eventually...read more

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